Actress Azie Tesfai‘s kindness has no bounds – literally. While playing Nadine Hanson in the hit series, Jane The Virgin, she has also been helping thousands of people around the world, from Africa to Asia and South America.
Her latest role is that of ambassador for SupportKind – an organisation started by Angelina Jolie to help refugees and provide legal services to children facing deportation.
Since 2014, it’s estimated 200 thousand refugee and immigrant children have entered the US alone and 60 percent of them don’t have attorneys to back them up. It means many kids are returned to countries where they face violence and even death.
It’s a cause close to Azie’s heart – her parents were immigrants from Eritrea and Ethiopia who went to the US on political asylum.
Azie’s important work doesn’t stop there. She’s also been helping to educate children in Ethiopia, provide books and equipment to schools in Mexico, care for survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia, give homeless Americans sanitation kits and so much more.
How has she possibly been doing all this while trying to track down Sin Rostro with Detective Michael Cordero Junior? Good question.
She’s been doing it through her jewellery line Fortuned Culture which gives its proceeds to those who need it most –
One bracelet gives a child in Ethiopia 60 breakfast and lunch meals.
One necklace gives survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia access to health clinics and psychological care.
A set of earrings gives a child in Mexico safe access to school for 6 months by bus, van or a designated chaperone.
It all started more than ten years ago when Azie travelled from the US back to her parents homelands in East Africa. She was volunteering for a charity in Ethiopia at the time, which was about to have its kids meal program cut due to lack of funding. Azie ended up selling some jewellery she had made to friends in LA and gave the profits to the charity.
It wasn’t long before she had more people wanting to buy her accessories, each time donating the proceeds to charities. And soon after she had her first bulk order lined up – 12 thousand pieces for TOMS.
Fortuned Culture has now helped thousands of women and children in 8 different countries including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Cambodia.
Azie often refers to her acting career as her “passion” and her desire to give back to communities in need, her “purpose”. Earlier this year, she spoke at a LifeIsBeautiful event, encouraging others to pursue their passion, but also, to find their purpose: